In the two years after October 1938 the fortunes of Winston Churchill underwent the most dramatic reversal of any politician of modern times. At the time of Munich, Churchill was dismissed as a warmonger and a has-been, and many viewed his career to that date as a catalogue of the failures of an over-ambitious adventurer. Yet twenty-four months later he was the national saviour, personifying Britain's defiance of Hitlerism and enjoying almost unanimous public approval.- From Eminent Churchillians by Andrew Roberts

These concealed bunkers, or Operational Bases (OBs), were dug out by Auxiliary Unit members, or in some cases created by the Royal Engineers. Accessed via a camouflaged entrance, they generally consisted of a corrugated-iron main chamber fitted out with bunks, a cooking stove and provisions to sustain a patrol for up to a month, as well as a smaller secondary chamber and an emergency escape tunnel.

Some were more elaborate, with chimneys incorporated into hollow tree trunks or spring-loaded entrance hatches designed to look like woodpiles, while others existed in disused mines or caves. In Kent, the architect of some of the most ingenious bunker designs was none other than Captain Peter Fleming, older brother of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

Click here for the story on Britain's underground army in the Second World War.

Because I am a vindictive and self-indulgent man, I am given to all manner of fits and childish acts. But this deranged vendetta, even for me, was majorly over the top.

In the bow of a rushing, 35-foot fishing dory, wedged against the boat's hardwood ribs to prevent the whitecaps from hurling me into the South China Sea, I was loading one-quart Glad-Lock Zipper Bags with miniature bottles of Bombay Sapphire gin, one bottle per bag, along with a snotty personal note. When each unit was complete I inflated it with a puff of breath, sealed it, and tossed it angrily into the surf building just off our starboard side. It would drift briefly, I figured, before washing up on the surprisingly empty, agonizingly close beaches of Pulau Tiga, a wet, jungly island twice the size of Central Park, seven miles off Borneo's northwestern coast.

At Steven Pressfield's blog, Shawn Coyne on how the writing business changed:The only other real stream of revenue for writers was short stories. Fitzgerald and Hemingway would bang these out whenever the wolf knocked at their door. And those two had a lot of feral visitors. At one point during the writing of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald found himself flat broke. So he steeled himself from the bottle and locked himself in a room above the garage of his rented home in Great Neck, NY. (Interesting how the desperate George and Myrtle Wilson lived above their garage in The Great Gatsby, eh?)

October 12 was a good day for a killing. It had rained all week, but on this Friday, after the church fair, our good Lord was in a kindlier mood. Though autumn had already come, the sun was shining brightly on that part of Bavaria they call the Pfaffenwinkel - the priests' corner - and merry noise and laughter could be heard from the town. Drums rumbled, cymbals clanged, and somewhere a fiddle was playing. The aroma of deep-fried doughnuts and roasted meat drifted down to the foul-smelling tanners' quarter. Yes, it was going to be a lovely execution.

First Team Meeting Attitude: "This is an exciting project and I'm glad to be here."Diplomacy: "Thanks, Ed. That's the sort of thinking we need here."Open-mindedness: "Did Carol get a chance to talk?"Unspoken: "I don't know this subject very well but I can learn a great deal from the others."Fourth Team MeetingAttitude: "I'm beginning to wonder if we all have the same goal."Diplomacy: "If you tell that groupthink joke again, Ed, I'm going to scream."Open-mindedness: "We already considered that option, Carol."Unspoken: "I'm doing all of the work!"Seventh Team MeetingAttitude: "Listen up people! We've got 24 hours to turn in a report and you're arguing about donuts."Diplomacy: "With all due respect, Ed, that's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard."Open-mindedness: "If we can put duct-tape over Carol's mouth for five minutes, we might get something done."Unspoken: "How did I get roped into this project?"

Art Contrarian on the finalists for the Turner Prize. [Be sure to click to see them.] An excerpt:My problem is that the term "art" has been watered down (Duchamp's legacy) to the point where anything can be called "art." But if anything runs the risk of being "art," then art is nothing special and the term becomes meaningless.

Kurt Vonnegut once remarked that the secret of writing fiction is to make the reader really want something and then take it away. You find that in life, of course, but the person who is taking it away is usually not some outside author or director but the main character.

I knew a candidate for an executive position who was bright and skilled but prone to self-sabotage. Just when the goal was in sight, he'd do something weird. Often, he would survive the cut regardless of the problem but in other cases he was sunk by his own actions. If I had been managing his career, I would have suggested a trip to an isolated cabin two weeks before any selection decision.

Those of us who self-sabotage, however, usually do so on an incremental basis instead of in one dramatic event. We acquire a collection of bad habits that eventually drag us down. In some respects, they resemble those dreams in which you discover yourself back in school, the final exam is today, and yet you've somehow forgotten to attend class all semester.

I suspect that many of our incremental blunders stem from faulty assumptions and not from a hidden intent to harm our careers or relationships. For example, if we assume that long-term thinking is admirable, we may not catch how frequently it causes us to miss or trip over things that are right in front of us. If we are impatient for achievement and regard that impatience as a commendable sense of urgency, we may not see how it drains pleasure from the processes that will eventually lead to achievement and how the depletion invites depression. As I've written here before, our vices may hide within our virtues.

If I were to urge one task for anyone experiencing career frustration, it would be to examine the assumptions that have governed daily life. You are the author and you may need to rewrite the story.

A U.S. Supreme Court justice recounted over cocktails a while ago his travails with his hometown zoning board. He wanted to build an addition onto his house, containing what the plans described as a home office, but he met truculent and lengthy resistance. This is a residential area, a zoning official blustered—no businesses allowed. The judge mildly explained that he would not be running a business from the new room; he would be using it as a study. Well, challenged the suspicious official, what business are you in? I work for the government, the justice replied. Okay, the official finally conceded—grudgingly, as if conferring an immense and special discretionary favor; we’ll let it go by this time. But, he snapped in conclusion, don’t ever expletive-deleted with us again.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

FutureLawyer, who likes to tap-dance on the edge of controversy, points out confessions of a former iPhone user.[I'll refrain from posting a photo of my cell phone. One of its advanced features is buttons with numbers on them.]

'How can a hundred people be led by a single person?' That was one of the essay questions in my Cambridge University entrance exam and, although it has long fascinated me, it has taken me twenty years to get round to trying to answer it. Yet this question lies at the heart of history and civilisation. If one person could not command one hundred others there would be no wars, but neither could there have been any cathedrals, space exploration or philharmonic orchestras. The ability of one person to make a hundred others do his bidding is the basic building block upon which all collective human endeavor is based, for better or worse. So how does it happen?- From Hitler & Churchill by Andrew Roberts

Mark Steyn writing in Commentary:The United States government currently spends one-fifth of a billion dollars that it doesn’t have every hour, every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year including Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Ramadan. A fifth of a billion dollars every single hour—so the $7 billion that John Boehner calls “a real enforceable cut for financial year 2012” represents what the government of the United States currently borrows every 37 hours. In the time between the Friday announcement of the plan and the Sunday morning talk shows’ discussion of it, the government borrowed back every dime of those painstakingly negotiated savings.Be sure to read the entire article.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

My favorite line from the film is when the literary agent (played by Robert Downey Jr.) mentions that his job is in danger because management has adopted a new paradigm. Michael Douglas asks "What's that?" and Downey replies, "Competence."

At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring. Inman's eyes and the long wound at his neck drew them, and the sound of their wings and the touch of their feet were soon more potent than a yardful of roosters in rousing a man to wake. So he came to yet one more day in the hospital ward. He flapped the flies away with his hands and looked across the foot of his bed to an open triple-hung window. Ordinarily he could see to the red road and the oak tree and the low brick wall. And beyond them to a sweep of fields and flat piney woods that stretched to the western horizon. The view was a long one for the flatlands, the hospital having been built on the only swell within eyeshot. But it was too early for a vista. The window might as well have been painted grey.- From Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

The old handbook spoke proudly of the chivalric tradition; the new apologizes for the antiquated example of the knights. It sandwiches a few cursory paragraphs on moral virtue between a lengthy discussion of drugs and alcohol and a section on sexual responsibility. Moral choices are reduced to healthy choices. Doing the courageous thing becomes equivalent to refusing a cigarette at a party.

"I only had three problems with him. He was inept, deceptive, and he lacked style.""He lacked style?""Yeah, if you're going to be incompetent and untrustworthy, you'd better have some style. Many a rogue has built a career on that. You keep them around for entertainment. Some might call it charm.""You have far more patience than I do for incompetent weasels.""Well, that's part of my style."

As Halloween approaches, here is a question: What is the scariest novel you've ever read?My own nominees, in order of scare-inducement, would be:The Mist by Stephen KingGhost Story by Peter StraubDracula by Bram StokerYours?

A friend once told me about a farewell party he'd attended at a corporation. The party, a pretty informal affair, was held in a lunch room. A few streamers were strung. Someone had brought in a sheet cake. There were some joke gifts. The mood was light but it changed a tad when the guest of honor arrived, took a look around, said, "I think you all are a bunch of bastards" and then walked out.

Well, let's not mark that down as a success.

I've never seen anything that dramatic at a farewell party but I've attended retirement parties where the overall atmosphere could inflict instant depression. Retirement parties, of course, have a higher bar. In the back of many a mind is "A person is leaving the organization after years of service and the best that is done is this?" If you're not going to do something stylish, it would be better to bypass a single event and try some alternatives.

My suggestions:

Designate a Retirement Week for the individual and stretch out some scheduled and private farewell sessions so the folks from The Lollipop Guild and other units can come by and tell the person, in sincere and low-key tones, just what the person has meant.

Set aside some time so the person can be interviewed about the job itself and the nuggets of wisdom that he or she would pass on to a successor. [Give them time to collect their thoughts before the interview.]

Have some public display of their tenure, something primitive and tribal. I'm serving as president of a community organization. After being passed the gavel, I noticed that the initials of previous presidents were carved in it. That's a small but nice gesture.

My point is it would help to get beyond the bland unless bland is what the person wants and make no mistake, bland is sometimes desirable. I knew a very successful executive who mentioned that he purposely furnished his office so it could be stripped of anything personal within two minutes. He did, however, generously convey the lessons he had learned before he walked out the door.That is another thought to bear in mind. When a good person leaves, you are losing the irreplaceable. You refill positions but you never replace people. Each is unique. Good service and companionship deserve proper attention.

At Matthew May's site, writer/designer Graham Hill giving a thought-provoking TED talk on the freedom of less stuff.

Being of a rather monkish nature, I have great sympathy for the stuff reduction philosophy and yet also worry that many who embrace it would not balk at coercion; e.g., "I (or the government) will decide what you really need and all else must go."

I find a certain liberation in reducing the amount of things, if only because they can become great distractions, but those who like the clutter of possessions should embrace it and not apologize for their approach.

We practice democracy with our personal projects but when our habits are in place, we slavishly obey a dictatorship.

Make something a project and there is a beginning and an end. If the task is demanding, we can guarantee that the end will come soon because we cast and count the votes. Our rationalizations for lax behavior are without limit. Even when there is no time off, the project eventually ends.

Once past the border guards of a habit, however, we find ourselves in a dictatorship where escape is difficult and feelings seldom matter. We follow a rigid routine and do the required chores regardless of how we feel.

That's why so many of the items which we wish to achieve are best accomplished if we make them habits instead of projects. With habits we are restricting ourselves, but with projects we may be fooling ourselves.

This incredibly rare and expensive chocolate was produced by the venerable firm of Felchlin, which claimed that it was unique in the world, made from an ancient strain of cacao native to the Bolivian Amazon—i.e., wild cacao, au naturel, unmolested by millennia of botanical tinkering. It hit me with an intense nuttiness, but without the slightest hint of bitterness, a combination I'd never experienced. Aromatics burst in my sinuses. Citrus and vanilla. The flavor dove into a deep, rich place, and then, just as I thought I had a handle on it, the bottom fell out and it dove some more. That might sound ridiculous, but I've spent an inordinate amount of time "researching" the best chocolate in the world, geeking out on it like the most obnoxious sommelier, and this was something entirely new.

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing.- From Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

The German Finance Ministry is handing out fortune cookies. [You can't make this stuff up.]Remember the old Woody Allen joke about the German-Chinese restaurant: "An hour later you're hungry for power." Anyway, what could be some great messages?"Beware of Greeks seeking bail-outs.""Bring back Ludwig Erhard.""There is a man named Berlusconi in your future."

In truth, it would be hard to imagine an oration more disturbing to the modern American elite’s sensibilities than Pericles’ majestic funeral oration delivered in the winter of 431/30 B.C. at the end of the first campaigning season of the Peloponnesian War—a masterful summary some 2,500 years old of what once made imperial democratic Athens great and why, in its darkest hours, it would prevail. The unabashed confidence of Pericles in his own civilization and national ethos, and the eloquence by which he conveyed it, were once gold standards for unapologetic Western democratic rhetoricians. Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill both emulated the speech’s reverence for ancestry, tradition, and cultural exceptionalism as a way of explaining why a confident America or Britain, in extremis, deserved its influence and should express it openly beyond its borders.

Gretchen Rubin at The Happiness Project interviews Andy Borowitz:Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?

When I think globally about whether or not I’ve accomplished enough with my life, or whether I have done as much as other people, that’s a pretty good prescription for being unhappy. A better approach for me is to focus on the day at hand and try to make the most of it.

The call was unexpected. I'd talked with the client a good two to three years ago about the project but then they got busy with other issues and the matter died. I conducted some related research because the subject was of interest and I felt that at some point my work would pay off but then...nothing.

It is now revived. There are some twists and new factors but the project that had been pushed to the back of the storage room is out on the desk, ready to be dusted off and made exciting. Some work that was done for other clients in the interim has sharpened our perspective. We can spot aspects that might have been missed had we started when originally planned.

As with so much of life, you need to be patient and ready. What may appear to be lost is not really lost.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I am frequently reminded of the fantastic "bench strength" we have in this country. It is not unusual to encounter people in a variety of jobs and locations who could perform well in high office and who are probably far more capable than the leaders of many nations.

When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, Parker told him to go to hell. The guy said, "Screw you, buddy," yanked his Chevy back into the stream of traffic, and roared on down to the tollbooths. Parker spat in the right hand-lane, lit his last cigarette, and walked across the George Washington Bridge.- From The Hunter by Richard Stark

Steven Pressfield recalls his years in the wilderness:When I was living out of the back of my ’65 Chevy van, there was a kind of dude I used to run into from time to time. A hard-core road character, burnt brown by the sun, unbathed in months, living on dimes a day. I probably met and spent time with a dozen guys like this in places like Texas and Louisiana, northern California, Washington state—giving them rides, working day-labor jobs, staying up all night talking. They carried guitars and no-hope dreams. I used to ask myself, listening to their tunes in a stoned haze some place that I could never remember twelve hours later, “Am I as over the edge as these guys? Am I heading as straight down the tubes as they are?”

Too big to fail is too big to allow, reads one hand-lettered sign on the east side of Zuccotti Park overlooking lower Broadway. Good point. As a few protesters (not all) understand, the problem with “the banks” isn’t that they exist, but that they’re isolated from the consistent rule of law. The bizarre irony, then, is that five weeks in, Zuccotti Park’s live-in campers are behaving more and more like the banks against which they are railing.

Monday, October 17, 2011

I've had The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini around the house for several years. Purchased at a used bookstore after a gushing reference to its quality, the book was moved from shelf to shelf until the time was right. [I was a little wary. So many books fail to match the hype.] I read three chapters last night and so far the high reputation is intact. Moreso than with many memoirs, this is a form of time travel.

If you are interested in being transported to the Italy of the Medici family, check it out.

At Anderson Layman's Blog, a post to remember: When I was about half-way through my liberal arts college years, I made, one day, a snide remark to my Dad about our "materialistic life style." Not angrily, but very wise to the ways of youth, he merely said, "Ok. I'll tell you what. If you are willing to go to the local community college instead of Denison, I will pay your tuition and donate the difference in the cost between the two to the charity of your choice." I believe that is known as calling a bluff. It was not my finest hour, but I did learn a lot about my Dad, myself, and what the real world is like.

Two key components of happiness in the workplace: control and achievement.When control is not present, fear walks in the door and all of the motivational practices in the world mean little if achievement is not experienced. Recall your happiest days at work. Those two were probably your companions.

Working on several consulting proposals. Sending notes to clients regarding classes. Posting new workshops. Ruthlessly tossing out files related to something that once had promise. [Will I regret that later? Perhaps, but they go nonetheless.]Background music for the day: Soundtracks from "Lawrence of Arabia"; "Amelie"; The Thin Red Line"; "The Cowboys" plus lots of Copland.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

What would you do right now if you learned that you were going to die in ten minutes? Would you race upstairs and light that Marlboro you've been hiding in your sock drawer since the Ford administration? Would you waltz into your boss's office and present him with a detailed description of his personal defects? Would you drive out to that steakhouse near the new mall and order a T-bone, medium rare, with an extra side of the really bad cholesterol? Hard to say, of course, but of all the things you might do in your final ten minutes, it's a pretty safe bet that few of them are things you actually did today.- From Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness

"You are entirely correct. It was a small thing. It would have taken less than ten minutes and perhaps just five of his time. That's part of what bothers me."

"I'm sure it was not meant as anything negative."

"Oh, I know there were no negative intentions, but his absence could have been significant if we had failed to get a quorum to vote on the much more important issue. If he won't do the small, how can I rely upon him for the large?"

"He wouldn't see it that way. He would argue that he dedicates his time to the important matters and some slips in the minor ones should be ignored or forgiven."

"I agree, nitpicking would make no sense, but I don't want him to make a habit of overlooking the small matters. There are days when we can't really tell what is minor and what is vital. I'm also concerned about spill-over. It's the old line about a good gardener never reserving a plot for weeds."

Friday, October 14, 2011

Ricochet provides a Martini Shot audio clip of Rob Long talking about deadlines and the TV biz.[I daily expect a voicemail regarding a casting call for a sitcom based on management consultants. I know, the very idea of a consultant show brings a smile to your face. We've known for hilarity.]

This post at Cultural Offering on decision fatigue sparked several thoughts. One, of course, was on the huge role that fatigue plays in our lives. If at all possible, we should avoid making major decisions when tired. You can see top management teams that start making "unforced errors" simply because they are worn out.

Another thought related to a remark that Dennis Prager once made about the need to study the importance and impact of boredom. We can wander into new territory because we are bored. The results may be good, bad or neutral but I'd suspect that most are bad.

This in turn leads to the question of what other commonly overlooked items deserve more attention. Envy, pride, indifference, rivalry, ambition, and comfort quickly come to mind. Think of how each can boost or erode careers and happiness.

Tanmay Vora has an intriguing post on the virtues of not following up. An excerpt:The need to constantly follow-up only means that people in the team are not clear of their priorities (or priorities are not clearly communicated). It also means they are not disciplined and accountable.

Time spent on following up is never estimated when you delegate the work. It is not accounted for, and hence results in further delays. The act of following up negatively impacts both parties – the one who is following up and the one being followed up.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

The King yawned as one of his valets threw back the heavy brocade curtains that surrounded the royal bed on four sides. The light that streamed through the tall casement windows now flooded the entire room. The King rose at once. After he had said his morning prayers, the elaborate process of dressing him began. First, one of his valets shaved him. Then, one at a time, each nobleman who had earned the privilege of waiting on the King handed him the article that was officially his to present. One might hand him his stockings, another his satin breeches, yet another his garters. Once he had been dressed, the King's hair was carefully curled and powdered.- From The Rights of Man, The Reign of Terror by Susan Banfield

L.A.P.D. Officer Jack Dunphy on the London riots. An excerpt:In one sense, London’s ineffective response to the violence on the first three nights is more understandable than was the LAPD’s failure to control rioting in 1992. L.A.’s riot came at the conclusion of a long and contentious criminal trial, the outcome of which clearly would placate or enrage segments of the city’s population. The police in Los Angeles had weeks, if not months, to prepare for trouble. Yet like most officers at the time, I received no training in crowd-control techniques; nor was I instructed on any planned response to violence. When violence did break out, the ten of us thrown together that night adopted tactics on the fly, and I was fortunate to have a supervisor who could think on his feet and not wait for orders from a chain of command in disarray.

It is important to understand that in a great many jobs, good performance involves various political skills, such as:

Pleasing community groups.

Avoiding any complications with the board of directors.

Staying out of the news.

Giving and sharing credit.

Not engaging in interdepartmental wars.

Keeping staff members within certain boundaries.

Using constant discretion in language and actions.

Fumble any of these and all other performance achievements may be neutralized. Some points may seem minor, but they have the potential to become major within seconds. They can be simply summarized: Be a solution, not a problem.

Quality (meaning getting everyone to do what they have agreed to do) is the skeletal structure of the organization; finance is the nourishment; and relationships are the soul. All of this comes together in what I call Completeness. Management has learned that they cannot delegate the policies and decisions of finance, and they must learn the same about the other two. Executives spend most of their time on finance and turn the rest over to functional professionals whose main concern is to protect their own turf and pride. It is hard to find any of these who are more interested in the company as a whole than in the success of their own functions. It is as if they feel they have to get re-elected all the time. In the twenty-first century, management will not have the latitude to fail regularly and still get on somehow, as is the pattern today.- Philip B. Crosby, Completeness, 1992

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

An audience member just frowned. That means:1. There's disagreement with what I just said.2. I'm going to get a challenge in the question period.3. The chairs are uncomfortable.4. I'm boring them.5. Something that has nothing to do with me.It has been nine hours and there is no response to my email. That means:1. She hates the idea.2. She didn't get it.3. She's upset with me.4. I should have called.5. She's busy.He listened to our proposal and said he'll have to think about it. That means:1. Forget about it.2. We should have listed more benefits.3. The folder was a turn-off.4. Carson talked too much.5. He'll have to think about it.

There is an assortment of items to be done: a training and coaching proposal to complete for a city government, a bunch of workshops to post on Trainup.com, scads of emails to send to clients and prospects, an ill friend to call, and a flu shot to get. In-between, there are thank-you notes to write, files to shred, and one marketing book to read, not to mention placing an order for some new clothes, and dropping off dry cleaning.The main theme of the day relates to marketing some training workshops, but the ancillary chores gobble time and some spice is added by a dental problem that periodically brings in a memorable wave of pain. I see the dentist tomorrow. That's something to look forward to.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Marco da Cola, gentleman of Venice, respectfully presents his greetings. I wish to recount the journey which I made to England in the year 1663, the events which I witnessed and the people I met, these being, I hope, of some interest to those concerned with curiosity. Equally, I intend my account to expose the lies told by those whom I once numbered, wrongly, amongst my friends. I do not intend to pen a lengthy self-justification, or tell in detail how I was deceived and cheated out of renown which should rightfully be mine. My recital, I believe, will speak for itself.- From An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears

SoxFirst has an amazing story about former Apple executive Ron Wayne . An excerpt:The New York Daily News reports that he ended up selling his 10% stake for a total of $2,300 and going back to his old job at Atari. How much would that be worth now? About $35 billion. Not that he regrets it. "If I'd stayed with them, I was going to wind up the richest man in the cemetery, so I figured it was best for me to go off and do other things," Wayne said.

FutureLawyer on the future of online universities:What if a Stanford Professor, known around the world as an expert in robotics, taught the same class to 130,000 students on the Internet for free that he offered to students on the Stanford campus paying $50,000 a year in tuition? [Execupundit note: What if the class was taught for a reduced amount that would provide a generous profit to the professor and a bargain for the individual student? Is a Groupon.com - or its equivalent - deal for classes in our future?]

Ms. Tzortzatos’s tolerance for the newcomers finally vanished when the sink was broken and fell to the floor. She installed a $200 lock on the bathroom to thwart nonpaying customers, angering the protesters.

The film "Contagion" raises an interesting question of what you would do if a highly contageous illness made grocery stores off-limits and the police force was unlikely to come when called.I came home from the theater and pondered our sparse supplies. You don't need to subscribe to survivalist publications to wonder whether it might be wise to stock up on a few things.Oddly enough, we were fairly well-supplied with water. (That's not always the case.) The food supply could have stretched to perhaps a week at most with only one meal a day. The weapons arsenal is not bad but could be expanded. We're a little low on barbed wire and animal traps.So the larder needs food that can last a long time; the staples of life so to speak, such as beer, Pop Tarts, Jack Daniels, jerky, and Twinkies.I haven't surfaced that list with the family. I'm sure they will approve.

The most critical missing piece, Randolph explained as we sat in his office last fall, is character — those essential traits of mind and habit that were drilled into him at boarding school in England and that also have deep roots in American history. “Whether it’s the pioneer in the Conestoga wagon or someone coming here in the 1920s from southern Italy, there was this idea in America that if you worked hard and you showed real grit, that you could be successful,” he said. “Strangely, we’ve now forgotten that. People who have an easy time of things, who get 800s on their SAT’s, I worry that those people get feedback that everything they’re doing is great. And I think as a result, we are actually setting them up for long-term failure. When that person suddenly has to face up to a difficult moment, then I think they’re screwed, to be honest. I don’t think they’ve grown the capacities to be able to handle that.”

The implications of such a discovery are so mind boggling, however, that these same scientists immediately requested that other labs around the world try to replicate the experiment. Something must have been wrong to account for a result that, if we know anything about the universe, is impossible.

And that’s the problem. It has to be impossible because, if not, everything we know about the universe is wrong.

In the summer of 1944, the year before the year I fell in love, I hitchhiked from Pennsylvania to Seattle by way of Chicago and Yellowstone National Park; from Seattle down the coast to San Francisco; and from there by way of Barstow and Needles via boxcar, thumb, and bus through the Southwest back home to the old farm, three months later. I started out with twenty dollars in my pocket and a piece of advice, cryptic I'd say, from my old man: "Don't let anybody take you for a punk." I didn't know what he meant. I was seventeen: wise, brown, ugly, shy, poetical; a bold, stupid, sun-dazzled kid, out to see the country before giving his life in the war against Japan. A kind of hero, by God! Terrified but willing.- From The Journey Home by Edward Abbey

People have told Jack Horner he’s crazy before, but he has always turned out to be right. In 1982, on the strength of seven years of undergraduate study, a stint in the Marines, and a gig as a paleontology researcher at Princeton, Horner got a job at Montana State University’s Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. He was hired as a curator but soon told his bosses that he wanted to teach paleontology. “They said it wasn’t going to happen,” Horner recalls. Four years and a MacArthur genius grant later, “they told me to do whatever I wanted to.” Horner, 65, continues to work at the museum, now filled with his discoveries. He still doesn’t have a college degree.

Click here to read the Wired article about the man who wants to turn a chicken into a dinosaur.